


It Takes A Village

by silenciadelumbrae



Category: Pokemon GO
Genre: POV Second Person, gender neutral protagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-10-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 12:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8014750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silenciadelumbrae/pseuds/silenciadelumbrae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When it’s no one’s duty, it’s everyone’s duty. There are some situations that will always make Blanche, Spark and Candela come together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disaster Strikes

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I don’t know, guys. I saw a Tumblr post about how Blanche would go themself if a Team Mystic trainer needed help, and it led me to thinking “well, who goes to help the kids who don’t have a team yet?” and that’s where this started. Then it, um, kind of spiraled out of control.
> 
> Obligatory "this is my first time here" and also, nothing about Pokemon ever did or ever will belong to me.

Your head hurts when you start to wake up, and you can barely open your eyes. The nameless Trainer is nowhere to be seen, though you aren’t sure you’d see them anyway with how the light blinds you. Darkness beats at the sides of your brain like wide soft wings, enticing you to go back to sleep and let it all fade away. You think in a faint sort of way that you might be moving, or maybe that’s just the dizziness. Your fingers ache from how tightly they’re clenched. Something smooth and hard rests under them.

“—don’t worry, don’t worry—”

It’s a male voice, and you want to flinch but you don’t have the energy. Besides, they don’t sound like the Trainer who’d left you like this. A gentle voice, soothing, like a parent calming a kid. 

You’re not a kid. You’re almost twelve. You’re a Level Three Pokémon trainer! And you’d be higher if you lived closer to the cities.

“—take you to the Lab—”

You’re not a kid, you don’t need soothing, and you want to tell the voice so but your mouth doesn’t seem to be connected to your brain. Nothing else seems to be, either. You can’t move. It’s like one of the bad dreams you had when you were little.

“—you’re gonna be okay.”

Against all reason, you believe the voice.

You slide back into the soft and welcoming dark.

~

_You sleep, and in your dreams you hear voices._

_“Blanche! Candela! Professor!”_

_“Spark, what is—oh. Oh no. I’ll get Candela.”_

~

The next time you wake up, you hear a female voice. Momentarily you wonder where the other voice has gone, but everything’s foggy and confused and thinking doesn’t work too well. Instead you focus on the words. 

“…the concussion is the worst of it. Some bruising and cuts otherwise. I don’t think anything is broken. But the concussion might be pretty bad if they’ve been out this long. They gotta go to the hospital, Spark.”

“You’re a doctor.” The original voice is back. Maybe because you missed it. Is any of this really happening?

“For Pokémon. I’m not trained for people!” A sharp edge that might be strain. “It might be worse than I think. It might be really bad instead of just pretty bad. Berries aren’t gonna fix this. They need a _human_ doctor—”

You try to open your eyes and groan as the light stabs straight into your aching head. The voices cut off immediately, and a head appears in your field of vision, thankfully blocking most of the light. The features are blurry, but you think their hair might be dark. “Hi there, sunshine.” It’s the female voice from a moment ago. “How are you feeling?”

“Where…?” You try to push away your hair and nearly hit yourself in the face with the object still in your hand. Narrowing your eyes and struggling to focus on it, you realize what it is.

A Pokéball. 

And it’s empty.

“…Bulbasaur? Pidgey?”

A second head joins the one already leaning over you. This one is spiky and blond. You wonder if you’ve been captured by a human Exeggutor. “Hey, buddy.” He sounds worried. “I found that Pokéball with you. What happened?”

You’re quiet, because you aren’t sure. You remember the other Trainer’s face, smug and superior—you remember anger turning to fear turning to panic—you remember… “I let them go,” you mumble. “Couldn’t…let him take her. I let them go.” 

Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. Bulbasaur is your best friend; she’s been your partner ever since you started. She must be so scared out there, her and Pidgey, trying to protect each other without you. She won’t understand why you abandoned them. Won’t understand you’d meant it for the best.

You have to go get them.

But as soon as you try to sit up, a pulse of pain shoots straight up into your head and there’s a pair of cool hands guiding you back down to the couch. Something long and silky brushes your shoulder as you’re put back into place, and a third voice says, “Stay there now. Spark, Candela, there will be time to find out more, but they have to rest. The Professor will be back soon, and we can take them to the hospital.”

No, there’s _not_ time. Turning your head towards the source of the new voice, you fix your blurry gaze on a long blue jacket and try to make them understand. “No—Bulbasaur, Pidgey—they’re alone out there, and he’s—”

Your voice fails you for a minute, but you collect yourself enough to say, “He can’t…can’t steal her to take to his…his _team_.”

A long, scary silence follows the word, which you spit out like poison. Then the female voice—the one that belongs to the dark hair—says in a voice right on the edge of explosion, “What team?”

You’re not sure. The details tangle in your head. But you remember one thing perfectly well. “He said…his is the best…and if I don’t join it, I’ll regret it. That…babies like me…we don’t deserve good Pokémon.”

The blue jacket swishes, a small angry movement that sets off waves of nausea in your stomach. Too much is moving. Too much is happening. There’s danger in the third voice when it says, “And he took your Pokémon?”

“I…don’t know.” You close your eyes to will the sickness away. “I don’t know. I let her go. I let them go. Told them to run. I have to…go, have to…look—” You’re so tired and your head screams. You’re not even sure you can stand, much less walk all the way back and start looking for your friends, but you’re their Trainer. It’s your _duty_. 

A cool hand rests over yours. “Everything will be all right,” the third voice says. “If you will allow me to borrow your sweater for your scent, I will try to find your Pokémon for you. Rest now.”

You manage a weak nod. “Take it,” you mumble, still not opening your eyes. Maybe he was right. Maybe Bulbasaur and Pidgey are better off without a baby like you, if you can’t even go save your own Pokémon.

“You’re not going without me, Blanche!” 

Blanche. Blanche is the blue jacket, the cool hands and soft voice. Blanche is going to find Bulbasaur for you, find Pidgey, because you hurt and you’re weak and you aren’t good enough to protect your own partners.

“…Fine. Spark?”

There’s a silence before the first voice—the spiky hair, you think, the one who found you, the first voice, that one is Spark—says, “I’d better stay with them. Someone needs to be here when the Professor comes.”

Sleep is insistent, and you don’t hear anything else.

~

_Candela kicks rocks all the way to the place Spark told them he found you, snarling at the dirt. “Not good enough—and he stole their Pokémon—they’re just a kid—!”_

_“Perhaps not stolen,” Blanche corrects. “We may find them. If they got away, they might come back looking for their Trainer.”_

_With her mouth set tight, Candela nods. “Yeah.” Then she broaches the topic that both of them have been silent on. The one hanging in the air between them. “I hope the kid remembers what team that jerk was on—if it was someone from Valor, I’m going to kick their ass.”_

_Blanche says, “I don’t believe anyone from any of our teams would do this. But if one from Mystic did…” They pause, face set and cold. “I will deal with them appropriately.”_

 _They stop and kneel when they hear a rustle in the bush, holding out your sweater like a peace offering._

~

You’re a little more aware when you wake up again, enough to know that you’re in a hospital bed. You haven’t been in one since the time you broke your ankle when you were seven, but the smell and the feel of the papery sheets brings the memory right back. The lights are dim, so you can see better. 

The spiky boy—Spark, you think, pleased that you remembered—sits beside your bed, humming. It might be to you, but there’s something big and ovoid sitting on his lap, wrapped in his jacket. You cough, and he looks up at you and smiles. “Hey, bud,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“A little better,” you say. “I can see now. Did…did they…?” You can’t quite bring yourself to ask. It brings their voices back to you, thinking of it.

_I will try to find your Pokémon for you._

_You’re not going without me, Blanche!_

_And he took your Pokémon?_

_What team?_

…Why had she cared what team? The rest, it’s just Trainers looking after their own, the way you’re all supposed to. But why had she cared about the team he was stealing for?

Spark must understand your question from before, even though you’ve lost the thread in your own mind, because he says, “Blanche and Candela are still out looking. I haven’t heard from them yet.” He pats your hand. “Don’t worry. They’re both really stubborn! I bet they’ll find ‘em.”

His cheer is so warm and infectious that you almost smile back. You hope he’s right.

“The doctor wants to talk to you, see how you’re feeling,” he adds. “Do you feel up to it?”

You nod, careful not to jar your head too much. He gets up, carefully settling his wrapped ovoid on his seat, and pokes his head out into the hallway. After a murmured exchange, he comes back. “She’s on her way,” he tells you. Preoccupied with your thoughts, you just nod again. Finally, you ask.

“Spark?” You’re puzzled, and it kept popping up in your dreams. He seems nice.

“Yeah?”

“Why did she ask what team?”

“Huh?”

You have to focus for a minute to bring it back. Not him, not Blanche, so the name for the last voice was… “Candela. When I said…about what he said. Why did she ask what team?”

He blinks. Worry comes into his eyes. “Do you know who we are, buddy?”

“Spark and Candela and Blanche,” you say, like it’s obvious. “You were saying each other’s names when you were talking. Before.” 

He hesitates. “Yeah,” he says at last. “That’s right. But…you know about the GO project, right? You must, since you’re a Trainer. We’re Professor Willow’s assistants.”

“Oh.” You’re pretty sure you’d known the Professor had assistants. You don’t remember much about it. As far out in the country as you are, it takes you forever to get any news and you miss a lot. “…So?”

“…which means Blanche and Candela and I are also…we’re also the leaders. Of Instinct and Mystic and Valor. We’re the team leaders. That’s why she wanted to know.”

Team leaders. _Teams._

_My team is the best, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll join it._

Your breath hitches in your throat and you pull back into your pillows, fingers clenching in the blanket. “But—” But what? But he’s been nice to you? But they took care of you? But Blanche and Candela are out there looking for your partners right now for you?

But if one of these three has someone stealing Pokémon for their team…

Your lips tremble as you force the question out. “…will they bring Bulbasaur and Pidgey back?”

Spark’s face changes. Tightens. His arms cross over his body. “Of course they will,” he says. “They’re…” He pauses, exhales. “Listen. What happened to you was bad, really bad. We’re gonna find out who did it, if we can, and fix it. But Blanche and Candela are my best friends. If they said they’ll find your Pokémon and bring them back to you, they will. They’re good people. Okay?”

A few minutes ago, you would have believed him without question. Now…you’re not so sure. How could a team leader not know what kind of people they’re working with? They’ve been nice to you so far, and you want to believe him, but a traitorous voice in your head whispers that it’s easy for them to be nice to you now that you don’t have anything anyone would want. Now that your Pokémon are gone.

“Okay?” he says again.

You can’t bring yourself to say okay, and your mom’s always said you were awful at lying anyway, so you turn your head away and stare at the far wall.

The door opens and closes. When you look back, the doctor has arrived and Spark is gone.

~

_It’s only a Rattata, and Blanche tucks your sweater away again. There’s no change in their expression, but Candela opens her mouth anyway. The words rise to her lips unbidden. We’ll find them, Blanche, don’t worry. We’ll fix this. We’ve got to fix this._

_Before she can actually say it, the beep of her phone interrupts. It’s Spark._

_“They didn’t know we were team leaders,” she says, reading the message. “Now they do, and they’re scared of us, he thinks.”_

_When Blanche doesn’t answer, she looks up. “Blanche?”_

_She can’t see much. Only a blue jacket, mostly hidden by foliage, as Blanche moves deeper into the bushes._

_“Blanche, where the hell are you going?”_

_Wading in after them and not bothering to curse the scratching, grasping branches, Candela catches a hint of scent. Sickly sweet, flowers that don’t quite mask the scent of blood and the beginnings of decay. Her stomach clutches, and she scrambles to catch up to Blanche._

_They stand together, staring down at what’s left of a child’s Pokémon. In spite of herself Candela grasps Blanche’s hand as sickness and fury roil inside her. It says something that Blanche—cool, wary, touch-averse Blanche—doesn’t try to pull it back._

_She wants to scream, wants to shout and rage and maybe punch something. She can’t. There’s no one here to lash out at but Blanche, and they don’t deserve it. The one who does deserve it is out of her reach for now. She swears it won’t be so for long. “Their Pidgey wasn’t good enough for that thief, was it?” she says at last. Sharp, staccato words that stab into her own chest like knives. “Not strong enough, not special enough.”_

_Blanche only nods. They free their hand from Candela’s and kneel. “We’ll take him back to them,” they say. “They both deserve that much.”_

_They’re quiet for the rest of the long walk back._

~

You cry for hours when the news gets back to you. Even the crushing guilt can’t stanch the tears as you curl up in your hospital bed and keep your back to Blanche. You won’t look at them. Can’t look at them. This is the third time one of the three has come in to check on you since you heard about Pidgey, and you still can’t get the words _team leader_ out of your head. 

Pidgey. Pidgey with his funny high-pitched “Pidge!” and his bouncy joy when you sent him into battle is gone. He’ll never snuggle up under your coat when it’s cold again, never poke his head out the front because he wants to see what you’re up to. He’ll never warble off-key in your ear and preen your hair again. There were times when his pitchy squeaking annoyed you; other Pidgeys didn’t sound like that. You’d give anything to hear it now. Anything.

Sure, there are lots of Pidgeys, but only one was _your_ Pidgey, and now he’s gone and it’s all your fault.

You should have been stronger. You should have been braver. If nothing else, you should have run. (And it kills you that you don’t quite know if you even tried; so much is still missing from your memories of the encounter.)

Blanche hesitates. You can practically hear them wondering what to say. Then they ask, quiet, like they’re talking in a church, “Is there anything you need from us, right now? Anything we can do.”

You stare at the far wall. Tears still roll down your cheeks, leaving trails of heat like a brand—the mark of your pain, your grief, your shame. “…I want my mom,” you whisper, and it feels like giving up, feels like failing. But your heart is broken and your dreams lost, and right now, you just don’t have it in you to keep trying. Maybe it makes you weak, but if this is what being a Trainer means, you don’t want it any more. “I want to go home.”

Blanche says, “All right.” Their fingertips just touch your shoulder, like you might break under their hand. You want to shrug them away but you don’t, because they brought Pidgey back to you. “I’m sorry,” they say. 

Candela had told you that the Professor had contacted police, that you would get justice for your Pokémon. Spark had promised they’d help you with anything you needed once you got out of the hospital, that they’d keep looking for Bulbasaur.

Blanche is the only one whose words you can answer. “Me too,” you whisper into the pillow. 

The door creaking is the only thing that tells you they’ve left.

You swear to yourself that you will never, never have a Pokémon again.


	2. Aftermath

The first few days after are a terrible, aching blur. You talk to police and to doctors and to the Professor himself about what happened. One officer brings in a Smeargle to paint the boy who’d stolen your Pokémon. You stumble and struggle as you describe a boy with dark hair (brown, or maybe it was black?), with thick eyebrows and pale eyes (blue, but maybe they were grey), and a mouth so thin it almost disappears when he isn’t smiling. It isn’t a very _distinctive_ face, that’s what you keep tripping on. You could have walked by that face a thousand times and never remembered, until now. 

The Smeargle’s officer turns the picture towards you, and you jerk back.

It isn’t perfect. The eyes should be a little farther apart, the nose ought to be thinner and smaller. But that look, that _smile_. How has Smeargle captured that smug, smirking, hateful smile so horribly well?

You curl tighter into yourself and whisper, “Yes, that’s very close.”

You don’t talk to anyone for the rest of the day.

~

_Spark still texts your mom, sometimes. She’s filtering all the updates for you, so she says, but Spark’s not dumb. Their numbers are all in your phone; he’d put them in himself. If you’d wanted to contact any of them, you have the ability, and that you haven’t means you probably don’t want to. He doubts your mom is telling you anything at all._

_So he gets his updates on how you’re doing from your mom. He passes on the news to Candela and Blanche, that you’re isolating yourself, not sleeping much, that you’ve given up on Pokémon. He’s the one who has to handle the disappointment when he tells your mom that they’re no closer to finding Bulbasaur for you. They’ve all seen the painting of the thief, tried to remember if they recognize him from their team, but he looks so ordinary. He could be anybody._

_True, Blanche had lingered over it for a second. “He reminds me of someone,” they’d said, but eventually shaken their head. “But I can’t put a name to him. I’m sorry.”_

_He’s heard Blanche apologize more in the last few weeks than he has since the GO experiment started. Watched Candela’s fire fade under the constant dull pressure of having nothing to report. He doesn’t like it. Still less does he like the news coming in from around the country._

_You were the first, but you aren’t the only._

~

Sometimes it feels like no one can possibly understand what’s happening to you, inside you, even though the therapist your mother found for you is doing her best. Your father surely doesn’t; he treats this like a minor setback, one that you’ll overcome with enough perseverance. The first time he’d mentioned you having another Pokémon one day, you’d had such a hard time breathing that the room had started to spin. You don’t know how to explain to him that yes, you had always wanted to be a Trainer, but that was before. Now you’ll just have to find something else to do. Your throat still closes up when you even try to imagine having another Pokémon, being in charge of caring for another Pokémon, even as a pet. Seeing battles on screen, even thinking about them, makes your chest hurt.

Instead, you devote the time you’d once spent on your partners to research. You swing between medical (concussion and memory retrieval featuring heavily) and criminal (usually the psychology of stealing.) Maybe if you can just understand, you can somehow fix this, fix yourself, and get rid of the nightmares that plague you. Your mom worries about your new hobby—you can tell by how she hovers. She keeps encouraging you to go see your friends, or call them, go for a walk, anything but holing up in your room by yourself with stacks of library books. 

Your old friends never come to see you. You wish you were sorry, but you aren’t. All you’d ever talked about with them was Pokémon, and without that, you aren’t sure there’s anything that will keep your friendships together.

Better to remember when it was good. The way you remember Pidgey. The way you remember Bulbasaur. Some part of you has accepted that you’re never going to see her again.

Sometimes you hear your mom crying, and you know it’s about you. You wish you could be different, for her sake and that of the partners you’ve lost, that there’s something you could have done when maybe it would have mattered. Dragging yourself out of this rut starts to feel closer and closer to impossible. No one calls. No one visits. You go to therapy, go to the library and go home. That routine doesn’t change.

So the knock on your door one morning surprises you. 

~

_After Spark’s last update, Candela presses her hands into the table so hard that her fingertips pale. “We have to_ do _something! I can’t take just sitting around like this!”_

_Blanche stares down at their data sets. They’re the only one even pretending to be working, but Spark is pretty sure they haven’t done anything with that pencil but chew on the end in the last hour. Blanche broke that habit years ago, and it’ll piss them off when they realize they’re doing it again. So the next time the pencil’s end approaches their mouth, he reaches out and puts a gentle hand on their wrist. Leaving it there, he addresses Candela. “What did you have in mind?”_

_She sighs. “What I want to do is go find that thief and punt him into another dimension, but that’s not gonna happen. I just…how do we find him?”_

_“Them.” Blanche breaks their silence. “There have been too many attacks, too far apart. One person can’t be doing all this.”_

_None of them question Blanche’s words, and that to Spark is the worst thing of all._

_Instead, he says, “It won’t deal with the thief—thieves—but there’s something we can do.”_

~

Candela is on your doorstep. “Come on,” she says, “let’s go for a walk.”

You hang back. “This book’s due back in a few days,” you say, trying to find any reason not to go, “and…and I have to ask my mom.”

“Your mom says it’s fine,” says a voice from behind you, and your mother pokes her head around the doorframe, beaming. “The book will be here when you get back, honey. Go on.”

Candela grins at you—a strained one, a tired one, but still a grin. “Nice try, kiddo.”

So you go along with her because you don’t know how not to. You can’t imagine what she possibly wants from you. The door clicking closed behind you sounds a little too final.

Candela walks fast, and sometimes you have to trot to keep up with her. Winded and panting a bit as the two of you near the edge of town, you nearly sigh in relief when she finally slows down. At last, you get a good look at where you are. Cold fear clutches your chest. “No,” you say. You know where she’s taking you now. You used to go all the time as a kid. “No, no, I said—I don’t want—”

She rests her hand on your shoulder. “I know,” she says. “And you don’t have to do anything or see any of them if you don’t want to. I just want you to take one step inside the door with me. Just one. I was going anyway, and I thought it might help you to come. Okay?” 

One step. You can do one step.

She stops at the doorway to the building and turns back to you, holding out a hand. “Are you ready?” 

No, you aren’t. You might never be. But you have nothing she wants or anyone wants, you’ve walked this far, and you can do one step. Swallowing against the tightness in your throat, you take her hand and walk with her under the sign that proclaims _‘North Shore Pokémon Shelter.’_

~

_“Are you sure that’ll work, Spark?” She looks dubious._

_“…No. But it’s something. Maybe it will help. And you were going anyway, weren’t you?”_

_She blows out a long breath. “If anything, it should be you. You’re more of a nurturing type.”_

_Spark turns his head away to hide his smile. Candela’s never watched herself handle a Pokémon wounded in battle, and he thinks she’ll do just as well with your heart wounds. He catches Blanche’s eye, relieved when they nod and take his part. “I think you would do well, Candela,” they say. “And at the least, you’re hard to refuse.”_

_Spark thinks privately that it’s more Blanche’s unexpected compliment than anything that gets Candela to agree._

~

That first time, you make it only two steps inside before you have to bolt out again. Candela lets you go, but after ten minutes of the breathing exercises your therapist taught you, you turn back towards the door. One step. You can do one step.

Just inside the door this time, you survey the room, noting the clear windows and labels on each door. You’re not sure where Candela went. She must be behind one or another of the doors. 

For an entirely different reason now, your heart hurts. The conditions aren’t bad. Clearly there’s been effort put into the containment units, and in each one there’s plenty of space. In almost every unit there’s a person. 

But it’s not right. Pokémon who have spent so long in human company that they can’t be safely released are supposed to have their Trainers forever. (Just like Pidgey and Bulbasaur were supposed to have you.) That’s the duty. The Trainer takes them in, and the Trainer is supposed to be there for them as long as they live.

Slow and careful, resorting to your breathing exercises whenever you need to, you make your way further in. You wander in further, further, until you stop by one door. Its label is clear and to the point: _Registered Volunteers Only_. Tilting your head, you look in the window beside it.

Some part of you expects a Charizard or a Dragonite, some large and powerful Pokémon that needs special handling. It stuns you, then, to find only a Spearow sitting on a perch. Older—must be, from the colour of the beak—and ruffling its feathers, it looks grumpy but hardly dangerous.

Pidgey sometimes ruffled his feathers just like that when he was annoyed with you. 

Trembling on the verge of tears, you turn away and almost run into Candela. She puts her hands on your shoulders and studies your face. “We can get out of here now, if you want,” she says. “I’ll walk you back.”

You manage a nod. On your way back through, one of the volunteers beams at you and invites you to “come again!” before adding, “Nice to see you, Candela!”

It surprises you that Candela really does come here often enough that the volunteers recognize her on sight and call her by her first name. She hadn’t come here because of you. It was exactly like she’d said—she was going anyway and thought you might benefit from going too. And maybe…maybe you had, a little.

On the way out the door, you pick up a volunteer sheet.

~

_Candela is practically giddy with her success when she comes back to the Lab. She spills the story to Spark and Blanche over the latest round of lab results. “And I think it did some good,” she concludes. “At least, if they go again.”_

_Spark and Blanche trade looks. Neither of them wants to be the one to burst Candela’s happy bubble with bad news, but Spark goes ahead in the end. “I hope so. Candela…”_

_He doesn’t have to go any further. Candela reads it in his expression. He’s always been bad at keeping a straight face. “…There’ve been more.”_

_“There have been more,” Blanche confirms. “We’re losing younger Trainers. Parents are worried. Many have called their children home. Some of the more advanced Trainers are also taking a break from travel.” They look back down at their data. “Even though it could mean the end of our project, I can’t bring myself to blame them. After…”_

_After what happened to you. And to the children after you. None of those kids have picked up where they left off. You aren’t the only one to swear off Pokémon training, maybe for good._

_No, Spark can’t blame them either._

~

You end up submitting your application, and to your surprise you actually get approved. Do they not know about what happened? Or do they just need volunteers that badly?

At first, every walk through the door feels like an endurance test. But after several visits, you start to look forward to being there, like you had when you were a kid. You aren’t in charge of these Pokémon. These are in the care of the North Shore Pokémon Shelter. If you left town tomorrow, they would be okay. They aren’t yours to love and protect and train. You’re just another set of hands helping to feed and clean up.

Somehow, that makes it easier, and soon you’re going every day.

As the new volunteer, you’re recruited to deal with the Spearow you saw in the window that day with Candela, and it doesn’t take long to find out why only trained volunteers get to handle it. It’s a temperamental, irascible little beast with no respect for gloves, food, or humans, and more than once you have to dodge its wicked talons while trying to clean. The minute you’ve finished, it likes to poop on the freshly papered floor, looking you directly in the eye the whole time.

When the volunteer leader on duty remarks, “You know, she really seems to like you,” while you’re once again tugging feathers and bug chunks out of your hair, you think it’s some kind of joke. 

“What?”

He laughs. “No, really. I haven’t seen her try to bite you even once.”

You are thrilled, _thrilled_ to know how much you still have to look forward to.

When he moves off, though, you hear, “You know, he’s right,” from the hallway. Jumping, you turn and look over your shoulder. Spark’s leaning against the wall, smiling, but there’s a strained look to it. It sort of looks like Candela’s, that first time. 

He’s not exactly blocking your way to the exit, but if you don’t want to pass him, the only other way out of this conversation is back into the Spearow’s containment area. You inch toward it. “I. Um. Thanks.” You’re not sure what to say or do. You’re still a little uneasy about how much interest the team leaders seem to be taking in you, especially now that you’ve said you aren’t going to be a Trainer anymore.

“I mean it,” Spark says. “We all come here now and again—did you know it’s one of the biggest facilities in the area? I know that Spearow.” His voice softens. “You’ve got a hand with her.”

You look down. Away. “…Is there any news?” It’s the first time you’ve referenced what happened to you directly, talked about Bulbasaur even indirectly, outside of your therapist’s office.

“No,” says Spark. “We’re still looking. I swear.” You can feel his eyes on you even without looking up. “Hey.”

“…Yeah?”

He says, “You don’t have to be a Trainer. There’s lots of other things to be. But you’ve got a talent with Pokémon, and you still seem to love them.” There’s a few seconds of quiet—you don’t know what to say—and then he adds, “Just…I’m glad. That you didn’t let him take that away from you, too. That’s brave.”

For a moment, you almost feel like that’s true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the interest so far, guys!
> 
> When I said this was spiraling wildly out of control, I think I underestimated. I thought this was going to be like three chapters maximum; I was wrong. (I may have been extremely wrong.) The fun picks up some next chapter, so stay tuned.


	3. Stand Your Ground

_All this time, and they’re no closer._

_The three of them have begun their own grassroots attempt at protecting young Trainers. Blanche came up with the idea; even though it means sacrificing data, it’s worth it to look after the most vulnerable of them. Each of them have reached out to team members they’re sure of, their best and brightest, the ones they trust the most. Given them coordinates of younger Trainers, those without teams and often on their own, and asked them to join those kids and stay together. To be a helping hand, a protector, to the kids who most need them._

_Candela implements it first. Spark talks the reluctant ones into taking the job. Not that there are many; they choose their “older siblings” carefully._

_It can’t protect everyone. It’s not enough._

_But at least it’s something._

~

You’re in Spearow’s unit when the alarm comes over the speaker. _“All volunteers lock down containment units. Lock down.”_

You aren’t too worried. This happens sometimes when a new Pokémon or a temperamental one comes in. It keeps Pokémon from tangling with each other if someone sneaks out and gets into the wrong unit. But it _would_ be your rotten luck to be in Spearow’s unit when it happens. She’s left off attacking you, mostly, and the two of you have come to a grudging respect for each other over the last several months, but you wouldn’t put it past her to try and poop on your head while you’re distracted. Muttering to yourself, you hit the dark grey button on the side wall and watch as the pinkish glow of the barrier shields the door.

When you look over your shoulder to get an idea of where Spearow’s at, though, you blink. Spearow isn’t even trying to sneak up on you. She’s staring at the door, tail flicking, spreading her wings wide in her usual signs of aggression, but…is she trembling? 

Not sure of your footing, you move towards her and offer your hand. You’re probably going to get bitten. “Hey,” you whisper. “It’s okay. This has happened before. You know the routine.”

Suddenly, she launches herself at you, and you’ve got an armful of shivering, trembling bird trying to dig herself into your sweater. At the same time, she starts keening, loud and clear. You’ve studied enough to know that’s a Spearow’s danger cry.

_Now_ you’re worried. You pull your phone out of your pocket, intending to call your mom, but it’s another name you hit, following some obscure instinct.

“Hey, Candela here!” 

“Help,” you whisper into the phone. You don’t dare speak up. “Please, at the shelter. I’m, I’m at the shelter. I think something’s really wrong, we’re in lockdown and Spearow’s screaming—please come—!”

The signal cuts off. You have no idea if she heard you.

“Well, look what we’ve got here.”

You stare at the boy grinning at you from the other side of the barrier. Spearow presses herself closer to you and you wrap your arms around her. For a moment, it’s months ago and you’re standing in a forest on a sunny spring day, facing another boy who’d smiled just like this one’s doing, spoken to you just that way. It’s not Spearow you’ve got in your arms but Pidgey, tired and grumpy from an earlier Rattata battle. 

The barriers only hold for fifteen minutes at a time before they have to recharge—it’s all the shelter can afford. How long have they been up already? Five minutes? Seven? 

“Might as well just let go of it,” he says, still grinning in that horrible smug way that makes you want to scream. “We’re going to get what we want.”

“The barriers will keep you out,” you snarl back. Don’t let him know you’re scared, be brave, someone is coming. You have to believe someone is coming, that Candela heard you and someone’s coming. 

He laughs. “We know how long they stay up, kid. Do you think we’re _stupid_? Or hey, maybe you’re stupid enough to think you can wait us out.”

Someone is coming. You have to get all the information you can. “But why? Aren’t you…” Don’t let him know you’re scared. Be angry. You have to hang on. The barrier has to hold. “Aren’t you _good enough_ to catch your own?”

He’s still smirking, but you catch a flash in his eyes. That must have stung. Good. “Why bother when it’s so much more efficient to let the underlings sort the wheat from the,” his eyes cut to Spearow, “chaff?”

Chaff. Spearow is just _chaff_ to him. Like Pidgey was to that boy.

“Even that ugly thing might have some potential,” he continues like he heard your thoughts. “Some good moves. If it doesn’t?” He grins at you, shrugs. “Too bad.”

You have no idea if Spearow has any good moves, any good IVs. It doesn’t matter. These…these _people_ would never accept a Pokémon like Spearow, with her nasty temper and frustrating habits, no matter how strong she is. If he gets her away from you, he’ll hurt her. You can’t let that happen, not again, not this time.

But how can you stop him? Pulling Spearow closer to you, the front of your sweater now entirely in tatters from her talons, you scan the room for anything you can possibly use as a weapon if you have to. The bucket, the mop, the broom—

The barrier dies.

He approaches you, smirking as he pulls out a Pokeball. Your eyes travel him, noting everything you can—clothing, face, hair, posture. You’re not going to forget this time. You’re not going to let him get away with it.

There’s a flash of red light, and a Jolteon appears. It’s lean heading towards skinny, and its bright spikes of fur droop. You don’t think you’ve ever seen more miserable eyes.

Spearow shrieks her fury and struggles to get out of your grip. You clutch tighter, but a well-placed scratch breaks your hold and she shoots towards the other Pokémon. “Spearow, no!”

A Thunderbolt arcs through the air and you scream, but Spearow is an older and cannier Pokémon than either of your partners had ever been. She dodges smoothly and aims for the Jolteon’s eyes with those vicious talons.

_Don’t let him get away with it!_

The next Thunderbolt hits. Spearow tumbles down. She fights back up to her feet and takes off, but she’s weaving, shaking, struggling to stay in the air.

_He can’t have her!_

She can’t win, your mind gabbles as the boy orders “Thunder!” She can’t win, type disadvantage, has she ever even _battled_ , but—but—

_But she’s not alone._

Without knowing quite when or how, Spearow’s metal perch is in your hand. The boy’s focused on Spearow—he doesn’t see you coming until it’s too late. You smash the perch into his face. He reels back, but he doesn’t go down. Crying, cursing, you hit him again as he tries to grab you. Again, harder, screaming that might be yours, might be his. 

You stand, trembling, above him when he crumples. He’s down. But your blood is on fire, your heart is burning. You want to hit him again, you _hate_ him, want him to _hurt_ like Pidgey must have hurt, you want—you want— 

You raise the perch again—

Someone grabs your hand. “Stop,” a voice says, and you nearly lash out before you recognize it. It’s Spark. “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe, both of you are safe. It’s okay.” He waits until you look him in the eye before he releases you. The anger died as soon as the adrenaline rush did, but it still takes you a minute to pry your fingers individually off the perch.

There’s blood on it. You’ll remember that later, but for now your only concern is—“Spearow!”

Spearow flutters down towards you. She’s still shaky, but she caws, pleased with her victory, and maybe also yours. 

She’s alive. She’s safe. Shaking, you catch hold of her and hug tight.

She bites you.

You think maybe that’s her way of saying she’s glad you’re safe, too.

~

_All three of them rush to the shelter—while you’d called Candela, Spark had gotten a similar call from the volunteer leader in charge, a member of his team. Blanche had been the one with the presence of mind to call for police assistance._

_Chaos greets them when they get there. Pokémon are everywhere, some locked in pitched battle between officers and Trainers, some shelter Pokémon fleeing back to their units, some standing around confused. The three of them split up almost immediately. Candela releases Arcanine and plunges in to assist shelter volunteers standing their ground; Blanche and Blastoise systematically begin eliminating threats to those volunteers who can’t or won’t._

_With battle matters well in hand, Spark goes inside, searching for the sources of the distress calls._

_He finds his team member first. She’s a little shaky, trying to soothe a frantic Nidorina, but she’s all right._

_When he finds you, it’s a bit of a different story._

_Having pried you off the boy, he studies you and Spearow. Examines the shredded sweater. He imagines you’re too full of adrenaline to realize how badly she’s scratched you._

_“Thank you,” he says, “for calling us.”_

~

You sit outside on the porch steps at Spark’s insistence once the chaos dies down. Officers take statements from as many of the volunteers as possible while doctors treat the wounded, including you. Blanche sits with you for a while after the doctor leaves. After stealing a few glances at them sidelong, you ask, “What were they thinking?”

They look over at you. “Hm?”

“To come here. To attack here. Spark said it’s a big facility.” You parrot the word back without pause. “They had to know there’d be lots of people, and there’s a town right nearby. Why did they come here?”

Blanche looks across the lot. Their face doesn’t change, but you think they’re just considering the question, not ignoring you. After a minute, they say, “Perhaps they have had some…trouble, lately, with their usual prey.” You don’t think you’re imagining a faint pride in the words. “It was not as poorly considered as it appears. Volunteers rarely bring their own Pokémon to the shelter. And the North Shore Shelter is well-known for handling Pokémon that are powerful and difficult to control, the sort that need a great deal of space. They would have had their choice of Pokémon, strong ones, with almost no human resistance if it had gone as they planned.”

They look at you. “They didn't manage it because you and the volunteer leader reached out for help right away, before the Magnemite they brought destroyed the signal. You did an important thing today.”

You look back down at your hands. Maybe they’re right. Maybe you did something worth doing, something that can start to balance out all you didn’t do. 

Blanche seems to know what you’re thinking. They say, “It’s always hardest to forgive yourself.”

You want to ask them how they know, but before you can, they look up and say, “I think your turn has arrived. She’s coming this way.”

Though Candela and Spark have been weaving through the crowd, talking to people, somehow they mysteriously reconvene with Blanche and you just as Officer Jenny gets to you.

Politely, you stand up and hold your hands out. “I’m ready whenever you are, Officer,” you say. 

Blanche and Candela trade looks. Jenny frowns at you. “For what?”

“To go to jail,” you say. You’ve had lots of time to resign yourself to it while the doctor cleaned and treated your cuts. “I hit that boy. He’s hurt pretty bad, I think. If you hurt people, you go to jail. That’s what my book said. It’s called assault.” You frown. “No, that’s not right. It’s battery. Assault is the other one.”

Now all four of the people around you are looking at each other with very strange expressions. You’d almost swear Spark is trying not to smile. Officer Jenny pats your shoulder. “I guess your book didn’t explain self-defense. You were protecting yourself and Spearow. I’m not going to arrest you.”

“…I’m not going to jail?”

“ _Now_ they look shocked,” Spark jokes. “C’mere, buddy, sit down before you pull any of those cuts.” 

You blink at him, dazed. You’d been ready to do it. Not wanted to, but…you’d been ready. Because it was just. It was fair. “Oh.”

Blanche says, “You do have someone else who would like to see you.” They point.

Frowning, you look up and see your mom at the perimeter that the officers have set up to keep civilians out. Seeing her breaks the shell of shock you’ve been moving in since you called for help, and you start to shake.

“Mom,” you say. You scramble to your feet and dash across the lot to her, ignoring the pain from your stomach. You duck under the perimeter and she hugs you hard, desperately. You’d complain if you weren’t hanging on just as tight.

“My baby,” she says, swaying back and forth with you curled into her like she’d done when you were small. “My baby, you’re okay. You’re okay. You were so brave.”

“It was bad,” you whisper into her shoulder. “But. But I’m okay. Don’t cry, Mom, please don’t, I’m okay.”

It hits you, finally hits you, what you’ve done. You faced him down, that boy who was so sure you’d crumple and give up. You protected the Pokémon who’d attacked a stronger opponent to protect you. You’d _done_ something.

You stood up for Spearow. And you _won._

~

_They hadn’t gotten everyone involved on the attack on the shelter. Some, especially those with Flying-types, had gotten away, and the boy from Smeargle’s painting hadn’t been there. Most of those who’ve been caught are stony in their silence, refusing to talk about anything. Those willing to talk have nothing much to say that police don’t already know._

_Blanche isn’t sure if it’s more a comfort or a torment that the captives span all three teams. On the one hand, they know it’s nothing they, specifically, have done. (They’re still haunted by the feeling that they should know the face in the painting.) But on the other hand, how widespread is this disaster, and how had they not seen it before now?_

_When they say as much to the other two, Spark says, “Blanche. Don’t do that to yourself. Please.”_

_Candela takes a harder tack. “No one’s expecting you to know every trainer on your team inside and out,” she snaps. “Only_ you’re _arrogant enough to think you should or even could. There are trainers on Valor I’ve never even_ met _. Spark is right. This isn’t on you, or any of us.” She leans forward, eyes bright and intense. “Do you blame me or Spark or Professor Willow for not seeing it? They aren’t just Mystic trainers, Blanche. Some of them call themselves Valor. Some of them call themselves Instinct. All of them belong to the GO project. If you’re gonna blame yourself, you’re gonna have to blame us, too.”_

_And of course Candela says it already knowing them well enough to know they can’t do that._

_So they don’t._

_But the feeling lingers._

~

When you come back to the shelter again a couple of days later, the same volunteer leader is on duty. She smiles when she sees you. “Just the person I wanted to see!” she says. “Come into the office for a second, will you?”

Are you in trouble? You can’t be. She looks too happy. 

She gestures you into the seat across from hers in the cramped closet some might call an office. “I know you’ve got lots to catch up on today, so I’ll be quick,” she says. “It’s about Spearow.”

Your heart jumps into your throat. “Is—is she okay? Did that Jolteon hurt her?”

“Oh no, she’s fine now that Nurse Joy’s had a chance to look her over. Feisty as ever, and very proud of herself! No, no, it’s nothing like that. It’s just, well…” She pauses. “You work with her really well. We’ve all noticed it.”

Oh no. Oh _no_. You have to go, you have to get out, you can’t—

“I was wondering if you’d considered fostering at all?”

“No,” you blurt. “No, I—I can’t, I just, I just can’t.” Your breath is coming hard and short again, and as much as you try to focus on your breathing exercises, they don’t seem to help. You shove yourself upright so hard that the chair falls over. “I _can’t_!”

She says something else, but you can’t hear it over the pounding of your heartbeat in your ears as you bolt outside.

In the parking lot, you sink to your knees. Had you really thought you were getting better? Had you thought it was over? All these months, and just thinking about caring for another Pokémon has brought back the panic attacks you’d thought were gone.

Maybe you’ll never be better.

No, no, don’t think like this. Breathe. Just breathe. Breathe and count. In, and to seven. Out. To eight.

A gentle hand on your shoulder makes you jerk. The volunteer leader says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. It was only a thought.”

She’s probably disappointed with you. You’re disappointed with yourself. But you still don’t go see Spearow that day.

You can’t get it out of your head, that maybe this is the best you’ll ever be, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this concludes the part I had actually finished before I started posting, so, uh. Updates may slow down a bit. I'm thinking now that the entire fic will span about six chapters, but I'm not quite ready to guarantee that yet. 
> 
> So hey, leave your thoughts below--as always, I love to hear them!


	4. The Forest

Even though it disrupts a routine you’ve come to depend on, you don’t go back to the shelter the next day, or the day after, or the day after that. The coordinators keep calling you, more often as the days go by, but you never pick up. To fill the time that you would have spent there, you dive back into your books (at least they will never be disappointed in you). They don’t really feel like enough, not anymore, and you often catch yourself staring out the window in the direction of the shelter. 

As much as you would deny it if anyone asked, you’re lonely. You miss your partners, miss your friends. More than anything, you miss the person you used to be. Denying yourself the shelter—the only place you’d gotten regular interaction with…anyone, really—makes it all too apparent how much of your life still remains empty. You could go back, you think. You know which volunteer coordinator works which days. Maybe if you just avoid her, only go in when one of the other two are working, this awful choking sense of shame will fade. 

Deep down, though, you know it isn’t only her that you’re afraid to face. It’s Spearow, who could be out of the shelter now if you were stronger. If only you could make yourself be brave, face the part of you that’s small and shattered and terrified even after all these months, even after the victory during the shelter attack. You’re not sure how to go about fixing yourself, but the niggling thought in the back of your mind says that someone worthy of having a Pokémon again would have figured it out by now. (You don’t voice this, not even to your therapist; you know what she’d say, you _know_ , but that doesn’t make it feel any less true to you.)

Maybe you miss Spearow, too. But that doesn’t mean you deserve to have her.

Staring down at your book without really seeing it, you become aware of a soft scratching noise, something sharp against wood. You look up, puzzled, to find the subject of your thoughts perched on your windowsill. Suddenly, all those unanswered calls from the shelter over the last day make a lot more sense.

“Spearow,” you say, opening your window. She immediately takes off, but hovers just out of arm’s reach. “You’re supposed to be at—” _Home_ is the next word that you mean to say, but shame breaks your voice. When you find it again, you conclude, “At the shelter.” 

She caws at you, and you extend your arm. “Come on, girl, come inside. They’re probably worried about you.” 

But she won’t come. She flits and flutters just out of reach, and eventually you sigh in frustration before climbing out of your window. You don’t want to lose sight of her. As soon as your bare feet hit the grass, she takes off—but again she doesn’t go far. She keeps just out of your reach, looking back to make sure you’re staying with her.

“If you’re trying to punish me for not coming to visit you,” you grumble, “it’s working. Come on, you stinker, come here.”

But she leads you further and further on, always staying just that little bit out of reach. You’re busy scowling at her and wishing you’d stopped for your shoes—your feet are _freezing_ and are probably going to have all kinds of bruises on them later. Then she pauses for a second to crow at you, flapping her short wings with something that looks like desperation. 

Your breath hitches when you realize where she’s heading. But you’re already out of town; how can you turn back now and tell the shelter that you lost her when you’ve followed her this far? 

“Come on, Spearow, please—”

She hops away, and resigned to giving chase, you run down the path to the forest after her.

~

_“Why did you do this?”_

_Silence._

_“What the hell_ possessed _you?”_

_Silence._

_“What’s his name, the kid who started this?”_

_More silence._

_He won’t look at her, won’t answer any questions Candela puts to him. She, Blanche and Spark had each taken a few of the kids who wore their team symbol, and she hopes the other two are having better luck than she is._

_“Why Valor?” she finally demands. Maybe it’s inconsequential, but knowing that the rest of her team are going to be tarred with this brush makes her_ furious _. She wants an answer._

_The boy looks at her, just for a second, and there’s a glimpse of something that’s maybe anger, maybe grief before he looks away again. She wants to explode, but doesn’t, and that second of controlling her temper creates the space for honesty. The kid (he really is just a kid, can’t be much older than you) says, “…seemed like a good idea once.”_

_She wants to push, wants to demand answers. She doesn’t. And after a minute, the kid says, “You said we’d be strong.”_

_He still won’t look at her. “You promised we’d be strong. But strong wasn’t enough. We weren’t enough. I couldn’t protect them.” Every word sounds dragged out, rough, like he’s struggling to make it through the sentence. “And then he came, and he knew how it was. There was a way to make it better.”_

_She doesn’t know what to say. Incoherent fury and pain overwhelm her thoughts; if something had happened to this kid along his journey, why hadn’t he come to her? Why hadn’t he done what you did and called for help? (Would you have called for help, if Spark hadn’t literally stumbled over you?) But somehow, this kid reminds her of you, now, and so there’s a softness that surprises her in her own voice when she asks, “Why is he doing this? Do you know?”_

_The boy turns his head and stares past her with eyes that look empty. “Ask Mystic,” he says. “Ask Mystic about the Spearow. They know.”_

~

You’d thought you were in pretty decent shape, but there’s “hauling washing and buckets around the shelter” fit and then there’s “all-out running through a forest” fit, and you are definitely not the latter. Gravel and debris stab into your feet, and you just know you’re going to be picking splinters out of your toes for weeks. “Spearow,” you gasp, out of breath and patience. “Come _on_.” 

She stops in a clearing, looking around like she’s lost something. Then she turns and bounces up, flapping her short wings hard to get high enough, and you instinctively hold your arms out for her. She lands in them and walks up your arm to your shoulder, muttering into your ear in a mixture of squeaks and chattering, tugging on the cloth of your sweater like she wants to take you somewhere. You’re confused, and a little concerned. Spearow’s always been pretty quiet as bird Pokémon go. “You know I can’t understand you, right?” you say. “Do you want to show me something?”

She bobs her head.

You sigh. “Okay, but that couldn’t have waited until I put on some shoes? Come on, let’s go home. I promise I’ll bring you out tomorrow for us to look at whatever it is, after we’ve told the shelter where you are so they don’t worry.”

She must be pacified by that, because she crawls into the hood of your hoodie and snuggles there. By now completely puzzled, you turn around and start walking back through the woods. For all that they’re not far from your hometown, you’ve rarely been far off the paths—most young Trainers stick close to the trails when starting out—and if you didn’t have your own (bloody, you note with a wince) footprints to follow, you’d have been lost fast. 

“Well, isn’t this handy? Hold up, nuisance.”

You stiffen. That voice. You know that voice. 

God, no. Not again. 

You want to run, but fear freezes your steps. Breath coming in stuttering, halted gasps, you turn your head to look. 

And there he is, just like you remember, so ordinary and unremarkable that in any other world, you would have walked past him and never thought twice. To hide your hands, you shove them into the pouch of your sweater. You don’t have your phone. No one knows where you are. All you have is Spearow, and you won’t let him know about her.

“What do you _want_?” You can hide your trembling hands, but not the shaking in your voice. “I don’t _have_ anything anymore!”

He smiles at you, the same sickening one you see in your nightmares. “You just can’t stop getting in the way, can you?” he asks. He steps toward you and you back away. “Run crying to the team leaders, like they’d do anything for a baby like you. Get in the way at the shelter. Guess you want them all to just stay warehoused forever, locked away where no one will ever make any use of them.” He laughs. “Kinda like you, huh? Useless.”

Your hands clench in the safety of the sweater pouch. “They’re not useless!” you scream at him. Pidgey. Spearow. All the ones at the shelter he’d have killed for not being strong enough. _“They matter!”_

Maybe it’s the rising pitch of your voice or the way your body shakes, but there’s a stirring from inside your hood and Spearow pokes her head out. As soon as she sees the boy, she shrieks—the same desperate, high-pitched rage that you’d heard when Jolteon had attacked her.

The boy’s gaze lands on her, and his face twists from amusement to shock to something like fury. “That’s _mine!_ ”

~

_So she goes to Blanche, because she certainly isn’t going to ask every single Mystic trainer what they know about a Spearow._

_Blanche looks distracted, miserable, frustrated. Their hair falls loose from the ponytail they normally keep it in, disordered from the amount of times they’ve yanked their hands through it. “I hope your choices have been more forthcoming than mine,” they say when they see her. It’s so rare for them to immediately come out with an admission of failure that Candela has to resist the urge to hug them, try and soothe away the intense frustration she sees shadowing their eyes._

_“Not really,” she says. “All one of them said was to ask Mystic about a Spearow, like that has something to do with the boy who started all this and—”_

_Blanche’s expression stuns her, not least because she’s never been able to read Blanche’s face so easily. Shock. Realization. Horror. And_ anger _, a bone-deep anger that she’s never seen before. Not from Blanche. “_ That _is what this is about?”_

_She risks asking, “…you know what he meant?”_

_Their face closes, and the moment of vulnerability is gone. “I know what he meant. Thank you. I remember now where I’ve seen that boy before. I have to speak to the officers.”_

_Candela tags along because she’s not leaving Blanche in this alone. They walk so fast that Candela, no slouch by any means, has to almost jog to keep up. On the way, Blanche talks. It comes in bits and pieces. “The boy. I was young—younger then. I never considered. After all these years?” They shove a hand through their hair, ignoring the tie as it gives up the ghost and falls out entirely. “It was so long ago. I never even thought. Only fourteen then.”_

_She doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t push. She’s pretty sure Blanche is only talking to themself, anyway._

_Two of the officers look like they’re mobilizing, heading out. Jenny looks up when Blanche approaches her. “There’s a report I made,” they say without preamble. “It would have been…five, no, six years ago, in the summer of that year. A report on a boy abusing his Spearow. I believe it was investigated, and he was banned from owning or training Pokémon. A lifetime ban. One of the children told Candela that this is related.”_

_Jenny nods, but her attention is clearly elsewhere. “We’ll find that. We have to move out.”_

_Candela feels her stomach drop. “What’s going on?”_

_Spark comes up to them, face tight and tense. “I just called their mom,” he says to Jenny. “They’re not home. She doesn’t know where they are.”_

_Blanche says, “Spark. What is it?”_

_Spark meets their eyes. “One of the kids talked to me. Their leader, that asshole kid, he’s going back. He’s pissed that they ruined it, and he’s going after them.”_

~

Spearow bounces to your shoulder, still screaming at him as loud as she can. Desperate, you grab her and tuck her under your arm like an angry football. Your mind whirls and all you can string together is no, no you won’t let him hurt her, _no_ —

_“Give it to me!”_ he yells.

Blinded by fury, you scramble backwards, holding Spearow tight against you. She shrieks and struggles, but you don’t let go. You can’t let her get hurt. “No,” you say. “No, how dare you, you left her, you left her, you don’t deserve—”

“They stole it from me,” he snarls, advancing on you. Your breath shortens, but he has to keep talking. As long as he keeps talking you have a chance to get Spearow out of here. “I bred it, it wouldn’t _exist_ if not for me, and they think they can steal it, lie about me and I’ll forget? It’s _mine_.”

His mouth tightens. “And if I can’t have what’s mine, neither can anyone else. Now give it to me.”

He must see your refusal in your face. His hand slides into his pocket. “Or else I’ll just take it.”

You have no choice, no weapon, nothing to fight with, so you do what you should have done all those months ago. You get ready to run for it.

As you spin around, two other Trainers step out of the brush, blocking you in. But they look unsure, worried, and you can make it if you’re fast, you know you can. You catch a flash of red out of the corner of your eye. You don’t stick around to see what caused it. All your attention is on getting out. The blood marks the way. Your throat’s burning. You can’t think. 

Holding Spearow tight to your chest, you _run_. Hands reach out to grab at you, brush your sleeves and your hair but somehow never quite get a grip. For a second you think you’ll make it—

You don’t make it. Something whips around your ankle and brings you crashing to the ground. Curling up instinctively to protect Spearow from the fall, you land hard enough to knock the breath out of your lungs. Gasping for air that you can’t quite seem to get, you twist around and kick out, scraping the _something_ off your leg—

And freeze.

It’s.

It’s her. 

Bulbasaur.

Different. Different shape, different size, her bulb starting to flower, but you know it’s her. Her vines coil around her, ready to strike out, but her eyes are anguished. Does she know it’s you? Somewhere under everything he’s done to her, does she know it’s you?

Different shape, different size, bulb flowering…she’s evolved. She’s evolved. She didn’t want to evolve, never wanted to, you’d promised she’d never have to. He _stole_ that from her.

While you’re still breathless with the realization, Spearow jerks free of your grasp. Spreading her wings wide and hovering over you, she shrieks at the boy, who growls at her and you in frustration. “I should have done more than knock you out,” he snarls. “I’ll fix that this time.”

“Garet,” says a voice behind you. The Trainer, one of the ones who’d tried to grab you, is audibly worried now. “You said just a lesson—you’re not really gonna _hurt_ them—”

“Don’t question me!” the boy snaps at him, and the crunch of leaves tells you that the two behind you have suddenly backed up. 

Your eyes stay fixed on Bulbasaur, who’s not Bulbasaur anymore but you _know_ who she is. She’s staring back at you, and you think—you hope—you see some flicker of remembrance in her face. “It’s me, girl,” you whisper as you push yourself back up to your knees. The ankle she’d grabbed feels weak and wobbly, poison maybe, and you aren’t sure it will support your weight. “It’s still just me.”

Drawing on all the strength you’d ever had—as a Trainer, as a volunteer, as a person—you get back up to your feet. The injured leg trembles but holds, barely. You won’t be able to run. But if it’s you he wants, if the other Trainers are already scared of what he might do to you, maybe Spearow can still get out of this. “You can’t have her,” you say, hoping you sound braver than you feel. “I won’t let you. She’ll run, she’ll get away—I’ll _die_ before I let you take her—!”

The boy abruptly becomes master of himself again. He shrugs, smiles, and gestures towards the woods. “Have it your way, then.”

The bushes rustle. A Rhyhorn steps out from them, lowering its horn, beady eyes focused on you.

“And die.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man I'm so cheesy 
> 
> um, anyway, I'll be doing my best to do weekly updates so that waiting isn't a huge issue. See you all next week!


	5. Alone

_Normally it’s Blanche and Candela who are the decision-makers, who set the precedents, who speed through everything while Spark strolls along and lets his instincts guide him. That’s how it’s always been, and it’s rare for him to feel this sense of desperate urgency. But you’re his responsibility more than either of theirs, somehow you have been since the moment he first found you sprawled out on the path, and he refuses to fail you now._

_Jolteon and Candela’s Arcanine are snuffling around in the grass outside your door, looking for your scent and finding nothing recent. Your parents insist that one of them would have heard if you had gone out the front door; you’ve always been allowed to wander as you will, and there would be no reason for you to sneak out. But you clearly aren’t in the house. How, then—_

_Of course. It only makes sense. He wants to smack himself for not realizing._

_“The window!” Candela shouts at the same time he thinks it. Blanche looks confused, but that’s not surprising. They’ve never been the type to sneak out at night. There’s still why you decided to sneak out when you’re allowed to go when and where you please, but that can wait. For now they’ve got to find you. Calling Jolteon over, he gestures to your window. His partner sniffs around in the grass, and then her head shoots up and she takes off._

_He follows at a dead run._

_We’re coming, buddy, he thinks. We’re coming, just hang in there._

~

Spearow screams her rage and attacks the Rhyhorn in a flurry of claws and pecks. The Rhyhorn doesn’t even seem to notice. It paws the ground uncertainly, staring at you, before lowering its head and charging. Everything seems so dreadfully familiar. Bits and pieces flash in your head, memories you’d thought lost. Wish had stayed lost. 

_Pidgey squeals his high-pitched cry, evading Rhyhorn. You try to coax him back to his Pokéball so you can switch with Bulbasaur, but he won’t come. That’s funny, it’s just a silly battle, and he’s usually such a good listener._

Back in the present just in time, you fling yourself off to the side to avoid its horn. It’s more of a stumble than a jump but it gets you out of the way. Air burns in your throat and your mouth tastes like metal as you watch Spearow race after the Rhyhorn, who’s sliding to a stop and swinging its huge head, trying to find you. _No_ , silly bird, doesn’t she understand she can’t save you, she has to _go_ —

_“Run!” you scream at your team, letting Pidgey’s Pokéball break open against the ground. “You have to run!”_

But Spearow won’t leave you. She whirls in the air, stabbing and slashing at Rhyhorn. She’s not doing any damage. She’s wasting time she could be using to get away. She’s got to leave, got to get back to the shelter. Why isn’t she leaving? Can’t she see what will happen if she stays? You aren’t worth this, aren’t worth _her._

_“Run, Spearow!”_ you yell at her.

Rhyhorn may not have good eyesight but there’s nothing wrong with its hearing. With a fix on your position, it lumbers into a turn and heads for you again. There’s faint sounds like shouting that feel very far away, mocking laughter that sounds closer, but all you can focus on is that sharp horn. If you can just keep dodging, maybe, maybe—

_Rhyhorn’s great foot swings, connects with your skull, and everything goes dark._

But it’s caught on that you won’t move far. When it misses you this time it spins around again immediately, gaining a rhythm. Your jerk to the side saves you from being speared. The passing horn rips into your thigh. The pain combined with bearing all your weight is too much for your weakened ankle and it gives under you.

You fall. And it’s coming.

You can’t look anywhere but at the Rhyhorn as it charges, horn aimed directly at your breastbone, so you watch with a sort of dazed finality. Here it comes then, the end. You hope your parents won’t cry. Hope the team leaders will find the boy. Hope this won’t be in vain. You’ll see Pidgey again soon.

“Run, Spearow,” you whisper like a prayer. “Go.”

As the Rhyhorn closes in and the shouting becomes more panicked, you close your eyes.

~

_There’s blood on the ground as Jolteon heads into the forest. It’s in the shape of small bare feet. You must be hurt._

_Spark stares at the prints, momentarily paralyzed. Little feet, little feet for a little kid. He doesn’t really remember it often because you’ve been through so much, but you’re only twelve and not real big for your age. Only twelve and out here alone in the woods with someone who wants you hurt or dead. Because you’d been at the shelter at the wrong time. Because you’d been brave._

_Jolteon barks at him and the spell is broken. He starts again, following the footprints._

_The loud beat of leathery wings catches his attention as Candela flies up beside him. Charizard growls its frustration at being made to stop. Even the Pokémon have grasped without being told how desperate the situation is. “Hop on, Spark, come on!”_

_That’s Candela. Never freezes, never lets emotions take over until the moment is done and she’s taken the actions she can. Blanche sits behind her, looking a little green—they hate to fly. But they’re doing it, because they’d once made you a promise and they’re not going to break it._

_Seeing them spurs him into action. You’re out here somewhere. But you’re not alone. Not if the three of them find you first._

_Spark shakes his head, gestures at the footprints. “You go!” he calls. “See if you can find them from above! I’ll follow these.”_

_Candela nods briskly, and with a signal to Charizard soars away above the trees._

_Spark keeps running._

~ 

Something wraps tight and hard around your waist, and you’re rising, floating away. Is this death? Funny. You’d thought being gored would hurt more. Maybe it’s just the shock. But your leg still hurts, and that seems somehow unfair. Do ghosts feel pain?

Then the boy yells, “You _bitch!_ ” and the Rhyhorn bellows. Confused, you open your eyes.

You’re not floating after all. You’re being held.

Vines coil around your waist, holding you protectively up in the air and out of Rhyhorn’s reach. Spearow perches on Bulbasaur—no, she’s Ivysaur now—Ivysaur’s flower, chattering away like they’re old friends as a whirling torrent of leaves blocks Rhyhorn from reaching either of them. It’s charging over and over, retreating each time as the leaves slice into its rocky skin.

Your dazed mind finally catches up with the facts. She’s protecting you. She knows you. She remembers. 

Tears burn hot in your eyes as Ivysaur lowers you back to the ground beside her, safe behind the leaves. Your leg buckles again as soon as you touch the ground, but she guides you carefully to a sitting position. “I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you.”

Spearow hops from Ivysaur’s flower to your shoulder and tugs lightly on a lock of your hair. One of Ivysaur’s vines twitches away from your waist and pats your cheek; there’s no stinging when she pulls it back again. Then both the Pokémon with you stiffen. Ivysaur starts to glow red around the edges as the leaf wall vanishes.

He’s trying to recall her. Trying to force her back into the Pokéball.

She resists it, digging her feet into the dirt and pushing down. You press your hand to her blue-green skin to let her know you’re there, fumbling with your free hand for a rock, something, _anything_ to stop him. Spearow rears back and the wind picks up to an almost unbearable degree around you and Ivysaur. When the Rhyhorn charges again, the whirlwind she’s created heads for the boy. He screams and the Pokéball hits the ground, broken.

Spearows aren’t supposed to know Razor Wind. How does she?

_I bred it_ , he’d said. _It wouldn’t exist if not for me,_ he’d said, and breeding teaches special moves sometimes, doesn’t it?

Another flash of red light, and you cringe. You’ve got to do something, got to be the help they need—Ivysaur and Spearow are doing good, so good, but you have to help them. You can’t just let them carry you. Turning your head, you confirm your fears—the shouting must have been the other two arguing. The younger of the Trainers is on the ground, where it looks like the older pushed him, and the older one holds a Pokéball as well. Her face is set. You can almost read her thoughts on her face. _No turning back now._

You want to tell her it’s never gone too far to turn around. Tell them both to run, to leave you and the boy to whatever is going to happen, like you’d told Spearow.

Then she releases Growlithe, and any empathy you’d felt is gone. There’s no point in trying to get up when you already know you can’t, but you can still do this much. You used to be a Trainer, too. As Ivysaur creates another protective wall of leaves, you shout, “Spearow! To your right!”

She whirls in the air, spots the Growlithe, and attacks.

It’s fast and desperate, and through the curtain of leaves you can’t tell who’s winning. Spearow’s shrieks and the Growlithe’s yelping and snarls only serve to make you more anxious. You lean forward, trying to see, as the smells of burnt feathers and blood fill the air around you.

Then a horn pierces the curtain, just grazing your cheek, and you jerk away. That last braving of Ivysaur’s Razor Leaf proves too much for the Rhyhorn, and it faints. With a sound of disgust, the boy recalls it. 

Ivysaur lets the leaves settle back to the ground. Growlithe, wounded and spotting a safer target, limps around and heads towards her. As it starts spitting embers, you react instinctively, grabbing Ivysaur and hauling her behind you. The embers hit you instead, and they hurt but not as much as they’d have hurt her. You won’t let any of them hurt her anymore.

Spearow darts out of the air and crashes into Growlithe. It’s only young, it’s taken too much damage, and it faints. With a cry of victory, Spearow spreads her wings and lands in front of you, facing the boy. 

“Who cares,” the boy snarls, “we don’t even _need_ Pokémon to deal with you anymore—”

He’s cut off when Spearow starts to glow.

~

_Spark arrives on the scene as the light dissipates. He sees you, curled around an Ivysaur, marked with burns and cuts and your leg—he can’t look at it for more than a few seconds. But you’re alive, and he’s going to keep you that way._

_The Fearow towering over you looks like a threat, and Candela must agree because at that moment, Charizard swoops down from above with a roar. The bird rears back with a shriek, and it sounds familiar—_

_“No!” you cry. “No, it’s Spearow!”_

_Spearow. Spearow’s evolved. She loves you enough to evolve so she can protect you better. In any other context he’d be so proud of you, but right here and now all he can think about is getting you out of here. Three Trainers. Three of them. This won’t take long. It can’t take long; he doesn’t know how much time you have._

_Red light flashes beside you, and Blastoise uncurls its massive body as Blanche jumps down from Charizard. Their gaze, cold and hard, lands directly on the boy as they stand over you. “A step up, then,” they say in a voice filled with ice. “From abusing Pokémon to torturing children.”_

_Spark has seen powerful Trainers and huge Pokémon cower under that particular stare. The kid flushes red with rage at the sight of them. “I never did! You lied!_ You _did this to me!” he shouts. He clutches another Pokéball in his hand. When it flashes red, Machoke springs out of the Pokéball, looking every bit as confused and enraged as the boy._

_Candela snarls, a sentiment Spark echoes. “You little shit—”_

_“It’s all right,” Blanche says. Their face sets and they step in front of you as Blastoise lumbers to their side. “I told the truth. You did this to yourself. And your fight is with me.”_

~

The adrenaline drains from you as Fearow lands. She wraps her wide wings around you and Ivysaur as you start to shake, and you lean back against her feathery side. They’re here. The team leaders.

They’d come to get you. You hadn’t really thought anybody would.

You can’t really see Candela and Spark anymore; Fearow’s wing blocks your view. But the sounds of battle are unmistakable. Vaguely, you hope Spark gets Candela to go easy on the younger Trainer, the one who’d tried to talk his teammates out of hurting you. But you’d seen the look on his face, and you somehow doubt it.

With the release of tension comes pain, a huge sweeping wave of it. You try not to cry, but your vision blurs with tears because everything hurts, it hurts so much and you can’t make it stop. Ivysaur snuggles into your side and Fearow croons above you. Letting your weight rest on her more heavily, you drift, staring at Blanche’s back.

If you’d had the chance to be a Trainer, a real one, you’d have wanted to be like them. So calm, so in control. Nothing the boy can do even ruffles their composure. They don’t speak, don’t shout insults or challenges the way some younger Trainers do. They let their battling prove their worth.

Blastoise mows down the boy’s next two Pokemon. When the boy finally comes out with Weepinbell, Blanche switches Blastoise for Lapras without a blink. Ice Beam ends things, once and for all.

The boy curses them, curses you, sounding near tears. Your eyes flutter closed. The pain is ferocious and you feel yourself fading. He’s just a greedy little boy, you think, distantly surprised. Not the monster your mind had built him up to be, after all. Not an insurmountable power. Just a greedy, selfish little boy who thought the world was full of toys that were his to break.

You drift peacefully into the dark.

~

_It’s with a horrible sense of déjà vu that Spark once again carries you out of a forest. Blanche is with him this time. Fearow soars above him, Ivysaur curled on her back. Charizard and Dragonite, with Candela, have already flown ahead to alert medics and deliver your attackers to the police._

_But the essentials are the same. Your skin has lost much of its colour and looks ashy, and you’re so small as you lie still and quiet in his arms._

_He’s failed you, again._

_Candela had done all she could for you in the clearing, but she’s not a human doctor. It has to be enough. After all this, you have to make it out._

_There’s medical help waiting at the edge of town—as far out as they can get the ambulance. As they take you from Spark and load you in, he stares at the bloody marks on his jacket. Without looking up, unable to tear his eyes away from the visible proof of your pain, he says to Blanche, “Tell me they’ll be okay.”_

_They hesitate. Then they say, probably knowing he needs the comfort more than the truth, “…they’ll be okay.”_

~

You wake up in the hospital. For a few minutes you wonder if it was all an extremely vivid dream. But there’s a weight on the end of your bed, and when you look, a pair of wide red eyes gazes serenely back at you. “Ivysaur,” you say. Your voice is rusty, surprising you. How long have you been out?

“Hey, kiddo.” 

It’s Candela by your bedside this time, not Spark, but otherwise this all feels awfully familiar. There’s a different thing on your mind now, though. “Fearow?”

“She’s fine. Back at the shelter. Grumpy that she’s not allowed to be in here with you. But she’s okay.”

That dredges a smile out of you. “And…him?”

She touches the back of your free hand. The other one has an IV in it. “Going away for a really long time. You’ll never have to worry about him again.” Then she takes a deep breath. “Do you want me to call in the doctor? To talk to you about…everything?”

You’re confused. “What’s everything?” 

You look down at your body. Covered by the sheets, it looks fine to you. With all the pain medication that must be in your IV, you doubt you’d feel a thing. 

Candela says, “I’ll grab him. Just…hang on a second.” She dashes out, leaving you with a faint sense of dread.

When the doctor comes in, there are a lot of long words and explanations that you don’t really grasp. Eventually, Candela snaps at him to stop confusing you and takes matters into her own hands.

With the poison damage and the attacks from Rhyhorn, she tells you, it had taken a surgical miracle to save your leg. It’s still not quite right, and may never be. You’ll probably always limp, and it may get worse as you get older.

“In short,” the doctor says, scowling at Candela, “traveling on foot very far or for any length of time will be difficult. Being a traveling Trainer may be out of the cards for you without a specially trained Pokémon, at least until you’re older and we see the cumulative effects of the damage.”

They both look at you, waiting for your reaction.

Maybe laughter wasn’t quite what the doctor had expected, but you see Candela’s features soften with relief. “It’s okay,” you tell them through giggles. Maybe the laughter was just a _bit_ hysterical, but your future has been the last thing on your mind for months. Up until you’d woken up here, you’d figured your future was coming to an end in that forest clearing. Forcing yourself to take a deep breath, you say again, “It’s okay. I…I’m _alive_. That’s what matters.” 

You still don’t really want to be a traveling Trainer anymore, but if you ever change your mind…You remember how carefully Ivysaur helped you sit after rescuing you from Rhyhorn. How Fearow steadied you as you let her bear your weight. 

If you ever change your mind, you think finding a Pokémon who will learn how to help you is the least of your worries.

~

_While you’re laid up, Spark goes back to the shelter._

_He drops in on Fearow, who’s sulking in the back of her unit as she’s taken to doing since she was separated from you._

_Sitting companionably in the unit, he says, “I hear you’ve been a real pain lately. Wanna hear about an idea I had that might help with that?”_

_When her head turns and she fixes him with one bright eye, he knows she’s interested._

~

You get through the treatments, get through the first few rounds of physical therapy, all with one thing on your mind: You want to get out of the hospital so you can see Fearow. Ivysaur is with you every step of the way, catching you when you fall, and the two of you slide slowly back into a rhythm between Pokémon and Trainer that isn’t quite your old one, but is all your own. 

They finally, _finally_ release you from the hospital, with strict warnings about taking care of your body and not missing your appointments. You agree. You’d agree to anything to get out. It takes a few days and several concessions to convince your parents, suddenly the most overprotective people you know, to let you go out. But eventually you win. You’d known you would.

When you go back to the shelter, you’re ready to be brave.

Before you tell anyone else, you want to tell Fearow. She deserves to have the choice of where she goes, and after all you’ve been through together, proving that you care about her independence is the least you can do. So you toss an absent wave to the volunteer leader when she hails you and manoeuvre your crutches to hurry along, wanting to get to Fearow first thing.

But there’s a new sign on her door, one that makes your throat go tight and your heart sink somewhere into the vicinity of your knees. You should be happy. You should be excited. But you’re not.

The new sign says, “I’ve Been Adopted!” 

And Fearow’s unit is empty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit I beat my deadline by like five hours  
> TAKE THAT procrastination  
> all right so like always, I'd love to hear what you thought about this chapter! See you all next week.


	6. Chasing Tomorrow

_Blanche is really not sure about this. “Spark, do you really think—?”_

_He nods, beaming. “Trust me on this. I’m positive. You could say I’ve got an instinct!”_

_They smile in spite of themselves. It’s good to see him back to making terrible jokes. Over these last few months, he’d almost stopped completely. They hadn’t realized how much they missed it until it started again. “All right, but I still think right now isn’t the best time to spring all this on them. They only just got out of the hospital.”_

_“It’s hardly springing anything serious on them,” Candela says, carefully smoothing down paint with the back of a palette knife. “It’s a celebration! The whole shelter’s in on it and everything, Blanche. And Spark asked their mom if it would be a good time.”_

_Blanche frowns. “Well, since they’re still recovering—”_

_Spark pats their shoulder. “Blanche. Trust me. It’s gonna be great.”_

_Somehow when Spark and Candela plan a party, it always goes well. It still seems a bit early to them, but if Spark is so confident you’ll like it, he must have some reason for thinking so. Blanche shakes their head, but goes back to measuring._

~

You sit on your bed, bad leg supported by a chair as you write and write. Balled-up paper surrounds you, marks of every time you’ve failed to do this the way you feel you need to. A few times, you stop to scribble out words or whole phrases. You’ve got to get this right. 

_Dear Adopter—_

Too formal, you think. Too easy to ignore. It doesn’t show enough of your heart. You’ve got to get it perfect, from the first word to the last.

_To Fearow’s new human._

That’s better.

The whole time you’re writing, the volunteer coordinator’s promises echo in your mind. “I know it’s always hard to see them go, especially after all you’ve been through together,” she’d said, “but she’s going to a great home. I promise, she’s going to be so loved she won’t know what to do with it all.” And you hope she’s right, you really do, but you still need to feel like you’re doing something to help ensure that the person she’s going to will do the best they can for her. 

_Congratulations. She is so special. Maybe you already know just how special she is. Since you got approved to take her home, you must._

After a few more false starts and stops, you lean back a little, hissing as the movement stretches wounds that are still healing. “Ivysaur,” you say, “how do I do this?” How do you congratulate someone else on being the person you want to be? How do you not sound bitter and hurt when some part of you, a big part, _is_ bitter and hurt?

She nudges her head under your hand, sprawled peacefully on the bed beside you. You stroke her head with a long sigh. You should be grateful, really. You’ve got Ivysaur back, scarred just like you but alive and safe, and Fearow is going to a good home. What more could you possibly want? 

(You know what you want.) 

_Please love her. She has had it so hard for so long. Love her, and she’ll love you. Love her and she’ll do anything for you. I know sometimes she can be difficult and cranky and downright rude, but please don’t give up on her._

At last, after what feels like much too long and far too much paper wasted, you frown down at your letter. It makes your stomach hurt. You feel like you’re making the wrong choice, like you’re letting her go without even a fight, but…the shelter has already decided. And you’d had your chance. They’d offered to let you foster her, back before all this, and you’d said no. 

If someone else who appreciates her has stepped into the gap you left then, you can hardly blame anyone but yourself. 

_Enough people have already given up on her. Please love her in the best way you can, even when it’s hard. I promise it will be worth it._

You breathe out and fold it up, taking extra care with each ridge and lining up the corners neatly. It has to be exact. For this last thing you can do for her, you want everything to be just right.

As you slide it into an envelope for the shelter to give to Fearow’s new Trainer, your phone buzzes beside you. It’s a text from Spark. 

_Party at the shelter! We’re coming to get you in twenty minutes, so be ready!!! :)_

In spite of yourself, you smile. Spark’s enthusiasm is infectious, and you’ve spent so long being sad that it’s about time to go find a little sunshine. Tucking your letter into your bag, you carefully shift your leg off the chair and reach for your crutches. “Come on,” you tell Ivysaur, “sulking about it won’t do us any good, and we’re alive, aren’t we? Let’s go have a party.”

~

_Everything is as ready as it’s going to get. Blanche knows there’s no need for them to fuss, but they can’t seem to make themselves stop. They wander the main room, fixing a drape here, shifting the angle of a chair there. It needs to be right. This is the first nice thing that any of them, especially you, have had for months. They just want it to be perfect._

_“Blanche,” says Candela, coming in and catching them fixing the gift. She smiles when they look up, and there’s such unbearable understanding in her eyes that Blanche has to look away, face going hot. “It’s already perfect, don’t worry. We’ve got their mom’s seal of approval.”_

_They stare at the ribbon they’re trying to fit on the gift, tangling their fingers in it. “Are you sure?”_

_They’ve had this conversation with her twice already. “I’m sure, Blanche. I promise, it’s gonna be fine. Now come and sit down. Spark’s already gone for the guest of honour. So grab that for the side room and let’s put it all in place!”_

~

On your way into the main room of the shelter, you pause by one of the windows and peer in. A lot has changed since you were last here. There used to be a Lickitung in here, but he must have found a new home. Good for him. Now there’s…

There’s a Jolteon in there now, and you know him. You _know_ him. He’s from the attack on the shelter. You hadn’t considered what might happen to the Pokémon whose Trainers had been involved in the boy's plans. He’s curled up in a ball, ears flat against his head as he stares at nothing. You consider going in, but you don’t know what you’d do. He’s so unhappy. Ivysaur winds her vine around your wrist, tugging you gently away from the window and back along the hall.

It’s a funny feeling, coming into a room where everyone in it is happy to see you, and not worried or scared or stressed. Some of the volunteers you recognize: people who you’d helped with one project or another, people who had helped you with Spearow. A few of them had even come to visit you in the hospital.

Manoeuvring around the room on your crutches isn’t as easy as you’d hoped, but you manage. It’s amazing, how many people and Pokémon came back to see you. The volunteer coordinator who’d asked you to foster hugs you and whispers, “We’re so proud of you,” in your ear before passing you off to another familiar face. The hugs and congratulations and excitement quickly blur together; there’s so many people and they’re here because of _you_. You’d figured that the friends you had as a Trainer were gone. It had never occurred to you that you’d made more over these past months.

When Spark waves you over to a side room and says, “Hey, come in here for a second? We’ve got something for you,” you don’t think twice about following him. Frankly, you need the break. 

You walk in, grateful that the width of the door prevents your crutches from getting you stuck, and the three leaders look at each other. Finally, Blanche steps forward, holding a Pokéball. “This is for you,” they say, holding it out to you. 

“A Pokéball.” You aren’t sure if it’s excitement or horror or merely surprise in your voice. Your chest feels tight but there’s some interest there, too. What’s in it? Part of you, the tiny hopeful part that has been hiding since you left the hospital, whispers _What if it’s—_ and is ruthlessly quieted. You can’t afford to hope that much.

“We thought you might like to greet this guest privately,” Blanche says. Candela glances away like she’s trying to hide her expression, but when she looks back with an appropriately sober face, you can still see the twinkle in her eyes. 

You carefully take the Pokéball from their hand. Ivysaur leans against your leg, watching the ball. You have a feeling Ivysaur knows perfectly well what’s in it, that in fact everyone knows but you. You’ve hardly clicked the button when red light blasts out of the ball and Fearow forms with a wild, excited caw. She heads straight for you and starts checking you over, chattering the whole time. It’s her. _It’s her._

You’re too overwhelmed to speak, so you say nothing, staring at Fearow, then at Blanche.

~

_Dread builds up in Blanche’s stomach. What if they were right and it’s too early? What if you don’t want Fearow after all? Watching your face, Blanche waits for something, anything that signals they and their fellow leaders made the right choice._

_They’re rewarded with a slow, dawning light in your eyes as you stroke a tentative hand over Fearow’s feathers. She’s already claimed her place at your side and is busy preening you, correcting your clothes and hair like an annoyed parent. “For…me?” you say, looking at Spark before looking at them and Candela. “But…she was adopted?”_

_“For you,” Spark says with a grin. It’s impossible to daunt him, Blanche thinks with fond exasperation. “Figured I’d get a head start on getting it organized, since you had so much else to think about. What do you think?”_

_The moment of truth. Blanche holds their breath._

_You hesitate, but the corners of your mouth are turning up and Blanche thinks that you’re more than half persuaded already. “I…do you really think I’m ready?”_

_You’re looking at them. So Blanche nods and finds their voice. “If we didn’t, do you think we’d offer?”_

_The tentative curve of your mouth slowly broadens into a brilliant smile. For a second, Blanche sees the kid you’d have been if none of this had ever happened. The kid your friends and family had talked about, who’d thrown themselves at the world with their arms wide open, so full of dreams and plans that there was no room for fear._

_“…I think you guys are the best,” you say._

~

You stroke Fearow’s feathers again, hesitant. What if they don’t understand—? “I’m still not going to be a Trainer anymore,” you say, leaning more heavily on your crutches. “I thought about it a lot, while I was in the hospital. I’m glad to have Ivysaur back, and…and I’m so grateful that you guys did all this for me, but…I don’t think it’s what I want anymore.”

Spark smiles at you. “Hey,” he says, “we figured. That’s okay. Remember? There’s lots of other things to be. You have all kinds of choices, but Ivysaur and Fearow want to be with you.” Then his smile fades to a puzzled look, but he’s no longer looking at you. “What’re you doing, pal?”

You look behind you when you feel a nudge, twisting on your crutches to get a better view. A bright yellow paw rests cautiously on your leg, and Spark’s Jolteon looks up at you, appealing. Behind her there’s another Jolteon—the new one at the shelter. His spikes have perked a bit since you saw him in the window, but his eyes are still so sad. You bite back a sigh and shift your weight. Ivysaur, understanding your plans, winds her vines around your waist and allows you to lower yourself into a sitting position, with your damaged leg stretched in front of you so you don’t strain it. “Hey, you,” you say to him. You extend a hand. 

“Careful, kiddo,” Candela warns, stepping forward like she intends to block the Jolteon. “He likes to shock first. He’s had a rough time.”

You offer her a weak smile. “Sounds like he could use some therapy, too.” As soon as the words come out of your mouth, you blink. Look at Ivysaur, who tilts her head and watches you right back, and then at Fearow, who does not look pleased at all. Then to the team leaders. “…but they don’t have therapists for Pokémon, do they?”

Spark’s Jolteon dashes to her partner. The newcomer stretches his head out and nudges your hand before retreating to the opposite side of the room. Spark grins. “You mean like rehabilitators. No, nothing like that. Not yet.” 

You’re not sure you’ve ever seen Blanche smile the way they’re doing now. “But there’s nothing that says there can’t be.”

Ivysaur leans into your good leg, encouraging you to go ahead and take the jump. She’s always been the one who had the most faith in you. More than you even had in yourself, sometimes. She would do this with you, you think as the Jolteon creeps back towards you, step by step. She would come with you, learn how to help Pokémon who’d been hurt the way you and she were hurt. But Fearow…

You swallow, unable to look anywhere else but at Fearow as Ivysaur helps you back to your feet. If she doesn’t want to do it…you forbid yourself to jump to conclusions. It still costs you almost all your courage to reach out to her.

“Do you want to come with me on this?” you ask. “Do you still want to work with me, even though we’re not going to compete? Even if we never battle again at all?”

Fearow studies you with big, gleaming dark eyes, and then she stretches her impossibly long neck and nudges her beak gently into your palm. Laughing, you drape an arm around her neck and scoop up Ivysaur with the other. You hug them both as Jolteon cautiously nuzzles your good leg, then fling yourself at the team leaders for what quickly turns into a group hug as your crutches clatter on the ground.

“I’m gonna do it,” you tell them, so full of bubbling joy and excitement and hope that you hardly know what to do with yourself. “We’re gonna make something totally new. We’ll make you guys so proud, you’ll see!”

~

_As they watch you head out to tell the rest of the volunteers your good news, Blanche smiles. They don’t need to look at the other two to know the same sentiment is on their faces._

_“You already have,” they say, though you’re long gone. “You already have.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here ends the saga of Kiddo and Fearow, at least for the time being! Thank you so much for coming with me on this bizarre little ride; it's been a fun one!
> 
> And while this one's over, I've realized I love Kiddo an awful lot and am not sure yet if I'm willing to let them go altogether, so if you liked this one, feel free to drop me a line either here or on my Tumblr and let me know if you'd be interested in more stuff about them.


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